Letters To The Editor

Wed., Jan. 18, 1995

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Curse against the city is working

I read a report in The Spokesman-Review last week that members of our City Council are getting a psychologist’s help. The Gypsy curse is alive and well, and I see that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Bringing in an expert from out of state and spending $7,000 is an insult to our local qualified psychologists. Jimmy Marks Spokane

County salaries outrageous

The article about newly appointed county administrator Jim Lindow earning less than two people he directly supervises was just another example of government out of control. It’s commendable that the three commissioners were not swayed that managers need to make more than those they supervise, however they have only scratched the surface.

What is wrong with our government? Can we as taxpayers continue to pay such outrageous salaries?

County employees regularly receive raises, or step increases, based on seniority, in addition to cost-of-living increases. Over the last five years, most private industry workers have had wage freezes or raises limited to cost of living - but still our taxes go up. After all, we have to pay for their increases.

In addition to $55,000-$80,000 salaries, county employees receive more paid holidays, more vacation days and better guaranteed retirement than the majority of the taxpayers that pay their salaries. Maybe the county should be chopped and diced instead of just shaken up. C.D. Anderson Spokane

Government needs to cut work force

I’m surprised that our elected officials still haven’t gotten the message: We want smaller government at all levels.

The trash cans/new trucks approved by the City Council will save 20-plus jobs, but no one will be laid off.

The governor is going to privatize the state liquor stores, which employ 650 people, but no one will be laid off.

Our county commissioners fire Marshall Farnell and replace him with Jim Lindow. One would think that Farnell would be out of work. Wrong. They provide a make-work position that pays $80,759 per year.

Does any of this make any sense?

Who are our elected officials afraid of? Unions! It certainly cannot be the taxpayer/voter, but it will be unless they start acting like fiscally responsible managers.

Almost every private company has reduced their work force by 30 percent to 50 percent over the past five year years. What has government done? My guess is that they’ve increased their work force by at least 15 percent over the same period. It’s impossible to reduce the size of city, county, state and federal government unless the size of the work force is significantly reduced. Why is that so hard for our elected officials to figure out? When opportunities arise to cut the work force they should be taken.

Private industry have reduced personnel, salaries, medical benefits, retirement benefits and many other costs of doing business and still manage to produce an improved product at the same or lower cost. If private industry can do this then why can’t government? Wayne Lythgoe Colbert

Term limits could backfire

With all the hue and cry among many of our people for term limits for our elected officials, something needs to be said against term limits.

Our nation was established with a system which was intended to make our elected officials accountable to our people. Periodical elections require an accounting to our voting public as to how actions in office are to be evaluated.

Of particular interest to our voters are the elected officials who control spending. Our representatives, both state and congressional, must come to our people every two years for election to return to our capitol for more time in office.

Term limits would violate the accountability factor.

Consider the following: Our present system grants only a short period of lame-duck non-accountability. Term limits would grant a full two-year non-accountability to lame duck representatives. Senators would have four to six years of non-accountability.

How foolish can we be? Term limits would undermine our election process. George Durkee Spokane

Gorton’s thinking dangerous

Sen. Slade Gorton stated, “Species come into existence and go out of existence literally by the hundreds of thousands without our even knowing about them.” (Spokesman-Review, Jan. 11) This flawed understanding of biological sciences is a grave danger to our future.

The massive wave of species extinctions we human beings are causing has no precedent in world history. During the massive die-off of dinosaurs that marked the beginning of the Cenozoic era, vertebrate species went extinct at the rate of one every 10,000 years. Today, one vertebrate species suffers extinction every day. New species are not evolving to take their place. The media has a responsibility to correct this kind of politics masquerading as science.

Scientists estimate that of the approximately 6 million species of life in our world, human behavior will drive 1.5-2.5 million of them to extinction, depending on the choices we make in the next few years. As we continue to unravel the web of life on which we depend, more and more ecosystems will be driven to collapse.

Ecosystems have collapsed before. My grandfather was driven from South Dakota by the dustbowl, the most recent example. The terrible human suffering of the dustbowl era was caused by misunderstanding of how nature reacts to man-caused disruption. The owls and the salmon are warning us of our destructive behavior. We ignore their message.

As a Franciscan friar, I believe we all are called to behave as responsible stewards toward our Earth. The short-sighted, scientifically irresponsible position espoused by Sen. Gorton certainly falls short of this standard. Keith Warner, OFM Spokane

Gingrich book deal not unusual

“Revelation has Gingrich on defensive” (Jan. 15) has me in despair. So what if Gingrich has a book deal with a Murdoch subsidiary and was due to receive a substantial advance even before writing page one? While legislation on the table would extremely benefit Murdoch, such book deals aren’t unusual. Public figures are a normal exception to the rules for advances in the publishing world, and Speaker Newt is a very public figure. The article proves that the Democrats are no better than the Republicans, or at least that Rep. Vic Fazio can sink as low as the lowest Republican.

The Republican and Democrat parties need to realize that the so-called Republican victory in the last election was by default. It wasn’t a mandate for the Republican Party, for conservativism, or even for Newt’s “Contract with America.” It was a mandate against politics as usual - specifically a do-nothing Congress divided along party lines and unwilling to even appear like they were working together.

If Rep. Fazio becomes the norm for the Democrats, then the winners of the next election won’t be the Democrats by default but a third party, perhaps even the one Ross Perot has waiting in the wings.

Our politicians can avoid that possibility if they stop trying to make a slightly dusty shelf into a mud-wrestling ring and start doing the job they were elected to do.

For the educated, Newt’s contact with HarperCollins doesn’t even have the appearance of impropriety - and our elected officials and our news reporters should be educated. Art Seaton Spokane

What are they afraid of?

Why are the Democrats, who had control of Congress during the time we accumulated an over $4 trillion debt, afraid of a balanced budget amendment? Darrell Schmidt Spokane

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Execution only repeats the crime

Will there never be enough killing to satisfy this town? It is frightening to hear again from the “good” people who want to kill “bad” people to show that killing people will not be tolerated. That’s part of the cycle of violence, and the cycle of violence is the primary cause of lifedestroying brutality in our state and community.

The name of Felicia Reese is invoked to demand violence against her killers. What a travesty! How do people remember her? As a loving and lovely young woman, or as a bloodthirsty advocate of retribution?

The cry is, “Don’t forget Felicia.” But in the rush to lynch the dazed children accused of murdering her, she may well be forgotten. When capital punishment rules, the victims are forgotten long before the execution.

Name the victims of Wesley Dodd and Chuck Campbell. The ghosts of the hanged victims of state violence are still with us, mocking our system of revenge that allocates millions for punishment, pennies for public security, and absolutely nothing for reconciliation and community-building.

Shall the cousins Boot be awarded the heady status of the legendary Dodd and Campbell, perhaps the only American dream they ever felt was open to them? Or shall they be relegated to the obscurity of long-term incarceration with opportunities for regret and a degree of maturity?

If our choice is to repeat the crime, we embrace the alleged values of the Boots and reject the values attributed to Felicia. That’s not justice. It’s sin. Rusty Nelson Spokane

Spokane police did a great job

I would like to thank the Spokane Police Department for a job well done.

On Jan. 6, I witnessed two young boys planning to commit arson on a lovely neighborhood church. The police were notified and they were immediately on the scene. I was expecting only one policeman, but thankfully five officers and a K-9 arrived. They were great. They put a lot of time and effort into finding the suspect. Thanks to the K-9 who tracked their scent, the suspects were soon arrested and taken into custody.

I think oftentimes the police are overlooked and not given the proper credit from the society they so willfully protect. I thank the officers deeply. If it wasn’t for their hard work and dedication, I’m not sure if that church would still be standing. Connie Eigell Spokane

IN THE PAPER

Press gives more emphasis to women

I note an article on a mass killing, published in your newspaper Jan. 9, “Police question man in killings of six.” I was struck by the reference to the six victims, “including two teenage girls and their mother.”

I wonder why the men were not mentioned. Did they have mothers? Were they teenaged? How about a headline, “50 persons killed in airline crash; 21 men and boys injured or dead.”

It seems that the press puts more emphasis on females than on males. Why do you think this is? Robert Michik Othello, Wash.

Writer should focus on other matters

Bill Maxwell’s column, “Christian extremists’ god is frightening” (Opinion, Jan. 12) raises some interesting questions. What exactly is it that he finds so frightening about Christians expressing themselves?

Stephen Carter, also a black writer, recently penned “The Culture of Disbelief.” He says, “We are troubled when citizens who are moved by their religious understandings demand to be heard on issues… ” This seems to be Maxwell’s problem. He insinuates that Christians can think and believe and act in any way they like, just as long as they keep their beliefs to themselves. Like it or not, there many evangelicals who have not catered to an MTV or Madonna-style morality. We still see homosexuality, abortion, racism and greed as morally aberrant.

It seems to me that Maxwell ought to spend more time helping repair the moral breeches in our society. He would be wise to address the issue of murder among his own people - the leading cause of death among black teenagers. Our society needs solutions to crime, illegitimate births, divorce, single-parent families, substance abuse and the disintegration in academic performance. Our standards, moral and otherwise, need to be elevated rather than lowered. If evangelicals can lead the way in any of them, we will be better off for it. Don S. Otis Sandpoint